Building a Budget Home Theater for Under $5k

[admin]

It’s one thing to hire an installer to create the ultimate home theater dream room. It’s an entirely different story (and a fun one) to create that room all by yourself—for less than five grand. While many home theater creations flaunt wealth in our faces, Stephen Hopkins was all about making us jealous for what he didn’t spend. "Budget was a definite concern," Stephen says. "Since we were building the house (our first) there was very little budget available for the theater itself."


Discuss "Building a Budget Home Theater for Under $5k" here. Read the article.

[allargon]

Nice but...

I see no room treatments on those hard wood paneled walls. I don't see any bass traps with all those fun angled corners, etc. At least there is carpet.

I'm a big fan of the DIY stuff... I really like his wall-art on the stairs. Moreover, I like the moulding he used to hide the pulldown/dropdown screen. I'm guessing his center channel is behind the screen?

[jostenmeat]

I hear ya allargon. It seems that treatments would really help in that room. I would also try to make the room darker, for sure. I used two of the largest black rugs that I found at Ikea to black out the floor. It helps a LOT.

Ok, so the pic in the post is the system, yes? Why is there a different/new pic in "Read the article" link? Does that belong to someone else?

I've been telling friends recently that I could build a system for 6k that will be better than the cinemas, IMO. So I think this is a cool article.

allargon, did you notice my posts in the challenging basement thread? A portion of one of them:

Here is another HT to give some people yet another ray of hope. 12x13 bedroom. $2260 total!!!!!! Includes PJ, carpet, furniture, HD-DVD player, wiring, screen, everything.

Small Budget, Smaller Room HT Conversion.

I am continually amazed at what people can pull off, both here, and elsewhere.

p.s. oh btw, I think its a phantom center setup. Which is totally understandable to me here, and is probably what I would do as well, given this layout. It wouldn't surprise me one bit that less sounds better than more here. Iono.

[poutanen]

Buying used/older stock helped to keep the costs down in my system... ALL of the speakers in my system are used, and I didn't pay more than half the original going rate for any of it (all in near perfect condition BTW).

I would suggest buying speakers and power amps used, as they're easy to test while buying. I would NOT suggest buying a receiver or projector used. Screen is a no brainer...

[jostenmeat]

Same here poutanen.

In the last two years, I've bought refurbed receiver, refurbed pre, refurbed amp.

A whole suite of 7 blemished speakers. Dealer was out on a few, and gave me NIB at blemished prices for the front 3. I can't tell they are blemished to save my life, btw.

Demo stereo speakers.

Open-box PJ (only 3 hours on it) from AVS.

300 lbs of room treatments all as used.

Superceded integrated amp.

BDP on accomodation.



Other new items of any major significance I bought were sub, HD-DVD player, and cdp. Oh yeah, some new treatments just recently.

[jamie2112]

Every piece of equipment I bought was used....
Well not the TV's.....

[Phil Taylor]

I like the part about making the projector mounting bracket. I did exactly the same thing for my projector and it worked great. I only spent about $15 for the materials and about a half-hour making it.